


An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins...unless it’s ketchup

by Batbirdies



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Basically, But only a dash, Cooking, Drabble Request, Gen, a tiny smattering of angst, bonding over shared life experiences, fluff??, for flavor, laughing at your younger self, male & female friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25987213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Batbirdies/pseuds/Batbirdies
Summary: It started with an,“oh dear,”and ended with Alfred thrusting a spoon in Jason’s hand, a knife in Stephanie’s and ordering them not to let anyone else touch the place.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd
Comments: 21
Kudos: 287





	An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins...unless it’s ketchup

**Author's Note:**

> This is for thatbadvibe on Tumblr who won a drabble from me for my 600 subscribers on Clearly Calm and Keeping Terrorized! 
> 
> The request was, “Jay and steph bonding? over anything. i just want more friendship between the two.”
> 
> I hope you enjoy!!

It started with an, _“oh dear,”_ and ended with Alfred thrusting a spoon in Jason’s hand, a knife in Stephanie’s and ordering them not to let anyone else touch the place.

The rest of them were banished to “anywhere but the kitchen.” 

Jason had offered to run to the store in Alfred’s behalf instead but had been gently turned down with an, _“I’m afraid I’m very particular about my produce, Master Jason.”_

And so, he stood, slowly stirring a pot while Stephanie went about chopping potatoes at the cutting board to the side of the stove. 

“Gotta be honest, I’m feeling incredibly smug right now,” Stephanie said as she sliced into a potato. 

Jason snorted, keeping a close eye on the onion and garlic frying in the bottom of the pot; he was supposed to add chicken broth when the onions turned glassy and clear and was being careful not to burn the garlic.

“There is some satisfaction in it,” Jason joked back, shrugging his shoulders.

“Some? This is better than being hand picked for a mission by Bruce,” she paused with her knife tilted up, hovering in place, “mainly because even Bruce doesn’t qualify.”

Jason barked out a laugh. “What do you mean even Bruce? It’s _especially_ Bruce.” 

Stephanie rolled her eyes as she reached for another potato. “It baffles me that he could possibly be as terrible as you all make him sound.”

Jason reached out for the chicken broth, and gave a low whistle as he poured it into the pot.

“Well, I guess he learned his lesson by the time you rolled around and stopped trying. Because I once had to show him how to make grilled cheese after he almost set the stove on fire trying to make one for me.”

Stephanie squinted at him sideways. “How does that even happen?”

“Hell if I know, even when I was twelve it baffled me.” 

“Like,” Stephanie went on, “I could make grilled cheese myself by the time I was eight.”

Jason glanced up, surprised. “Yeah? Me too.”

“Sure,” Stephanie said, gesturing with the knife, “like it’s that hard? I cooked for myself all the time when I was a kid.”

She went back to chopping then, staring at the vegetables with a slight frown and a furrow between her eyebrows while Jason stirred the pot and made sure there was no residue stuck to the bottom. 

He had too of course, but it hadn’t exactly been by choice. When your dad is in jail or just missing all together and your mom is passed out in the other room, just as far beyond reach, you do what you need to. 

“Yeah,” he said into the quiet that had settled.

She continued her work, not glancing up. “I mean you just….make due. We didn’t all have butlers I guess.” The last part was mumbled as she stared at her hands, fingers tucked in and chopping a little slower now. 

Jason hummed to himself. “Hey, there’s something to be said for natural talent, Timmy fended for himself for a long time too and he’s still hopeless,” Jason took the spoon out of the pot, gesturing with it like he was making a point.

She snorted, shaking her head. “That’s true. He just bought himself frozen meals all the time.”

Jason didn’t mention that frozen dinners would have been a luxury in his home, but he imagined it wasn’t far off for her either. 

“It taught us creativity,” Jason nodded to himself, watching the first wisps of steam waft up from the pot. “Necessesity is the mother of invention and all that.”

Stephanie nodded and then abruptly stopped chopping. “Hey,” she said, amusement in her voice, “what’s the weirdest thing you ever made back then?”

Jason blinked, thinking back to mayonnaise sandwiches and plain pasta with butter and salt. “I don’t know...I tried to make hot dog casserole once.”

“Tried?”

“Well,” Jason stopped stirring, “I didn’t know how, or what the ingredients even were. So I just kind of threw a bunch of stuff into a casserole dish with some chopped hot dogs and threw it in the oven.” 

“What was in it?” She put down the knife, turning to him and crossing her arms, one hip leaned against the counter.

“Uh…” he tried to think back on it, “I mean, whatever we had in the house. I think there was macaroni noodles, hot dogs, cheese….pretty sure I put ketchup in it, cause we didn’t have any tomato sauce.” 

Stephanie snorted, “Oh my god I did that exact thing once. I made spaghetti, but we didn’t have any tomato sauce, so I just squeezed ketchup all over the noodles.” She was laughing by the end of it and Jason found himself joining her.

“Ok no, the worst part is that I didn’t cook the noddles first, cause I figured they’d cook with the hotdogs-“

“Ha! Oh my god,” She turned back to the cutting board but only stared at the vegetables, a smirk on her face. “So what did you get? Some burnt, dry macaroni?”

“Pretty much, it soaked up some liquid so it was like, soft in spots and super chewy in others. It was disgusting.”

Stephanie nodded, “ketchup spaghetti was also terrible.”

“....still ate it though.” They both said it at the same time and then busted up laughing. 

_“Oh my god I know,”_ Stephanie wheezed. “The amount of terrible shit I made for myself, but I would-“

“Always eat it,” Jason finished, nodding, “I remember gagging down more than one meal before I figured out some staples.”

“Yeah,” Stephanie sighed, almost wistful, “I got pretty good at grilled cheese, and I used to eat apples and peanut butter for a meal pretty frequently. But there was also tuna casserole...which was just macaroni and cheese with a can of tuna thrown in.”

“Peanut butter and jelly,” Jason tossed out, “A lot of sandwiches in general. I also used to mix peanut butter with honey and eat it on pretzels.”

Stephanie set her knife down and scooped the next potatos up to toss in with the others. “That actually sounds really good.”

“It was, I’d go through a whole jar of peanut butter in like three days.”

She snorted again, “Oooh, my guilty pleasure was microwaved marchmallows. My mom used to convince herself we’d go camping in the summer, so she’d buy the jumbo ones? But we never went. And she’d forget we had them, so she’d just buy another bag until we had like 7 bags of jumbo marshmallows in the back of the pantry so I would add them to everything. And my favorite thing,” she said, picking up a bag of spinach, “was to microwave them until they were four times their size and eat them with cinnamon graham crackers.”

“Mine sounds healthier,” Jason added, laughing a little to himself as he adjusted the heat on the burner.

“Oh definitely, I threw up marshmallows once and I thought I was going to die because it was just white foam. Thought I had rabies or something.”

Jason cracked up again, shoulders shaking. “Oh man, my mom bought a bunch of licorice once on one of her good days? Cause she knew I loved it, and so of course I ate like three containers of it in one day and threw it up that night and my mom flipped. She didn’t know I’d eaten that much of it and she thought I was like, vomitting blood.” 

“Oh noooo,” Stephanie snickered to herself. “That’s so awful. You get in trouble when she realized you’d eaten all of it?” 

“Nah, I think she cried though.” Jason shrugged and Stephanie gave a short sputter.

“Oh god. Mom’s are insane, you know?” 

“Oh definitely. But all things considered, we didn’t exactly have the standard model.” 

“Pfft, ok true. It built _character._ ” She stood up straight, both hands gesturing palms up like she was imitating some shakespearean actor. 

“Oh for sure.” Jason nodded along, continuing to stir and giving her a mock serious look.

“The rest of these idiots don’t have a funny bone in their bodies. It’s a shame.” She shook her head in faux disappointment and Jason nodded sagely.

“And they don’t even know the trick to making ground beef in the microwave.”

“Dear heavens.” 

Jason and Stephanie both paused, looking back toward the doorway where Alfred stood with a grocery bag in one hand. 

“Please tell me you have never disgraced our microwave in such a way.” 

“Ooooh, Jason’s in troublllle.” She put her knife down, backing away from the cutting board while Jason scoffed.

“I plead the fifth.” He kept on stirring, unable to keep the smirk off his face as the butler approached, eyeing their work.

He gave an approving nod and then a slight sigh. 

“I suppose I will live in blissful ignorance then. Good work to the both of you, I’m glad there are at least some of you I can trust in the kitchen.” 

The two of them made eye contact behind his back and Stephanie gave a dramatic wink.

Jason covered his laugh with a cough and patted Alfred on the shoulder. “Glad we could help. What else do you need?”


End file.
